Skimping on kids cheats our future

Updated 11:44 pm, Saturday, November 3, 2012

To get at the core issue in the Texas school financing court case, let's imagine a small-to-middling water reservoir.

Equal shares of water for users do not necessarily spell equity, what's fair or best for all. Some users simply will have more legitimate need than others.

If there is then not enough water to go around, this argues persuasively for a larger reservoir.

Those challenging Texas' woefully inadequate school financing understand this completely.

I fear, however, that the layman is confusing equal with equitable, believing the fix is just in differently divvying up the already insufficient amount available.

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What weight to give certain needs is an issue. But the bigger one is whether school financing is sufficient to all the needs in the first place. Yes, there is more “water” available if the state gets a proper grip on priorities.

In Texas, the situation has been exacerbated by certain demographic shifts that should not have taken us by surprise but, from the available evidence, seems to have done just that.

Districts with students of disproportionately lower income will have different needs than districts in which incomes are higher and parents have completed high school and have college degrees.

To get at equity, we must stop pretending that all students start from the same place — first base — or buying into this notion's second cousin. This is usually said this way: The system was good enough for me.

Well, that model worked as long as the absence of a high school diploma or college degree didn't inhibit individual ability to earn living wages and the economy's competitiveness. That is no longer true.

So, the state set the bar higher with its new STAAR testing. But it continues to kneecap the schools with inadequate funding.

Moreover, the state, in the last legislative session, shorted schools from even their previously insufficient allotments.

Albert Cortez is the policy director for the Intercultural Development Research Association in San Antonio, which aims for quality education for all students. He explains that this finance model has become even more inoperable as the school population in the past two decades has seen more “nontraditional students.” Read in here Latino students, but more students of color generally tend to come from households with lower income and lower educational attainment.

In other words, while Texas school funding has grown in actual dollars in those decades, it hasn't kept pace with the needs in adjusted dollars or in amounts sufficient to meet these more plentiful needs.

“Given the demographic shifts, it's not just that the model doesn't work; it's dysfunctional,” Cortez said.

In testimony recently, former state demographer Steve Murdock noted that Texas is 43rd in total per-pupil expenditures and last in the percent of people 25 and older who have completed high school. These two items are connected. Meanwhile, the state's student-age population is expected to grow by 4.5 million (91.5 percent) by 2050, most of this driven by Latinos.

Said Cortez, “Parents send you the best kids they've got. Parents have high aspirations for their children but something happens to those kids in the process of going through the school system.”

Right. They lag, and getting them caught up takes effort. But absent resources, teachers will concentrate on those who are at grade level. So, too many students just quit or continue plodding along.

And instead of fixing this, we mull school vouchers.

Translated: Let's not fix public schools. Easier and cheaper to abandon them.

This newer school population differs from previous populations, but they are still Texas' future workforce. And that means they are Texas' future. Period.